


Soft Spots

by INMH



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Discussion of Nazis/Hitler, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship, Gen, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strong Language, Trauma, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya meditates on his comrades’ weaknesses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Spots

**Author's Note:**

> *Cracks neck* God, but this took forever to crank out. I've been off my game for the past few months.

Illya knows his own weaknesses well enough, as does anyone else who knows him well enough or pays attention.  
  
It’s his teammates’, now, that have become a source of curiosity for him.  
  
[---]  
  
It is frustrating, at first, to know that both Napoleon and Gaby know these weaknesses: Napoleon wheedles at them when they first meet, deliberately provoking a man who had tried to kill him twice in no less than twenty-four hours. Gaby did not prod, but occasionally eyed Illya as one might eye a land-mine that may or may not still be active. Eyed him like he would hurt her.  
  
It’s hard enough for his superiors to know, hard enough to almost be able to predict when they’re going to exploit those weaknesses to get a desired reaction from him.  
  
But it is far worse to know that they know, to know that his vulnerabilities are on show for everyone to see.  
  
[---]  
  
They are sent to Smolensk to hunt down a potential lead on some associates of Rudi’s.  
  
Gaby handles the news with grace. To this day, Illya is uncertain of just how much of her apparent affection for her uncle had been true, and how much had been an act to ensure his trust.  
  
It is reassuring to be back in the Soviet Union, back in his homeland, but Smolensk is not Moscow and so the feeling is tempered somewhat. It is further tempered by the fact that Oleg has sent him a very cool warning that he had damn well better keep his eye on “the American" and "the German” as long as they were in Russian territory.  
  
U.N.C.L.E had been given rare and special permission to enter the U.S.S.R. Technically Gaby had already been living there, being from the Russian-claimed half of Berlin, but Napoleon’s presence is nothing short of extraordinary. Illya has seen more than a few people double-take when they hear his American-accented Russian.  
  
He has been to Smolensk before, knows the area well enough to feel comfortable showing them around. Gaby is genuinely interested in seeing the sights, and so Illya feels comfortable giving her more leash; Napoleon, however, he constantly keeps within his sights. It isn’t so much that he thinks the American will try to gather intel so much as cause some sort of trouble, and Illya will _not_ be held accountable for his trouble-making this time.  
  
They are approaching the Cathedral of the Assumption when it happens.  
  
“So, tell me,” Gaby drawls, arms crossed, eyebrow cocked, “the man who built the stairs of this cathedral, how old was his mother when she died?”  
  
Illya rolls his eyes. “I haven’t the faintest.”  
  
Napoleon frowns. “What on earth does his mother’s age have to do with anything?”  
  
Gaby grins like a fox, and Illya has to repress a groan. “Don’t.”  
  
“Oh, but it’s _such_ a good story. You see, when we were in Rome-”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
The man was small and gray-haired, but probably in his forties. There was a thick, faded scar running from his chin up to his left ear.  
  
There was a general understanding in Russia- or at least, the western parts- that if a person was male and over a particular age, then they were probably a war-veteran. Such was the nature of millions of Russian soldiers being slaughtered in the first few weeks of the war: Every soldier had had more than their fair taste of war in the four years that the conflict had lasted, and this afforded them a certain amount of respect from the rest of the population. Illya knows this instinctually, feels that respect surge instinctively, as it always has.  
  
But it takes a few seconds longer for him to realize that they are in a particular sort of situation at the moment, one that the average Russian war veteran did not normally find themselves in. Upon realizing the complication, Illya looks closer look at the man and realizes that there’s a funny look in his eyes, shadowing his face.  
  
Illya sees it before Gaby does, puts a hand on her arm that she doesn’t really notice, because she doesn’t realize yet.  
  
“I am from East Berlin,” she says, with a small, polite smile.  
  
The man smiles as well.  
  
And then he rears back and spits in her face.  
  
“немецкая шлюха!” He hisses. She gasps as saliva lands on her cheek, disgusted and shocked, and stumbles back a bit.  
  
As of yet, Illya thinks it likely that Gaby does not know enough Russian to know what “шлюха” means. But she probably knows that “Немецкий” means German and the context is enough to imply that the second word is not a compliment.  
  
The word “whore”, however, invokes a singular sort of white-hot fury in Illya’s gut that is exacerbated considerably by the spitting, and it’s only Napoleon’s sudden appearance directly in front of him that he manages to avoid murdering a man in the middle of the street.  
  
“Let’s go,” Napoleon is just audible over the blood rushing in his ears. “Let’s go, let’s walk away right now.” He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and hands it to Gaby, putting one hand on her back and using the other to clamp down onto Illya’s arm. He is fortunate that Illya isn’t completely lost in his rage, or it wouldn’t be nearly enough to hold him back.  
  
They return to their hotel, all to their separate rooms: Gaby wants to be alone, Illya needs to calm down, and Napoleon’s keen survival instincts tell him that his companions are best left unbothered for a few hours.  
  
Illya is only somewhat surprised when, around dusk, Gaby comes into his room with a half-finished bottle of vodka and an unsteady gait.  
  
“I am sorry,” he tells her after she sits down across from him at the small table where he’s been practicing his chess moves. “That man, he must have been a soldier during the war.” He doesn’t have to explain the significance of that. She must know.  
  
Gaby nods. She is quiet for a few minutes, and Illya waits for her to speak. She likely did not seek him out just to watch him play chess with himself.  
  
When she does speak, her voice lacks its usual strength.  
  
“My father worked for Hitler.” Gaby says softly, lower lip quivering. “No one cares to make a distinction whether he was forced or not. I don’t even know how much of it is true. But to anyone in Germany, I am a Nazi’s daughter. To anyone anywhere else, I am German, and therefore a Nazi myself.” She lets out a low, cold chuckle. “It hardly helps that my uncle was a madman in the truest sense of the word.”  
  
“You are not them.”  
  
“No one cares.”  
  
“I care.” Those words slip out a little faster, a little easier than he intends for them to. Before she can pin him down with that Look, he quickly adds, “Cowboy, he does as well. Waverly too. We don’t care who your family is.”  
  
Illya thinks about how badly he’d needed to hear those words as a child, about how much he had needed someone, anyone to tell him that they honestly didn’t care about his father’s crimes despite the enormity of the shame they had laid upon him. Perhaps Gaby needs to hear them too.  
  
If she does, she says nothing. Maybe it’s pride, maybe she simply doesn’t know what to say- Illya isn’t certain he would, in her situation- but she doesn’t say anything in response. He hopes, at least, that she believes it. It’s difficult to tell, as her face has shifted from something dark into something unreadable, though not as miserable as before.  
  
They sit in a silence that isn’t quite as melancholy as it was before. After a while, Illya glances back at the chess board, and toys with a knight until he tests a move. It’s as he’s analyzing his choice in position that Gaby speaks again.  
  
“I met him once, you know.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Hitler. When I was five.”  
  
Illya’s noticing a slur to her voice now. She must have been drinking as he was staring at the board.  
  
“I didn’t like him. I thought he was a strange little man, and he sounded so _ugly_ over the radio that I could hardly stand to see him in person. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go back home and finish building my model car with papa.” She tips back another long gulp of whiskey. “He was so nice to me, though, and I shudder to think at what a monster he was. I want to vomit now that I know what he’s done to the world. To innocent people.”  
  
Illya thinks about telling her about Stalin, about how he met the man twice (eight and ten, respectively) and how even though he felt honored to meet him at the time, he feels the same sickness, the same shame, to know what the man did and would do later on. To know that you have had contact with such a monster, to have had him smile and offer you a sweet like he was a beloved uncle, was an impurity, a stain, a rock in the center of your gut that wouldn’t go away.  
  
He also know what it’s like to live in a country where the tide has turned against this man, and being caught in the middle: Those who hated him hate you because you (or loved ones) associated with him, and those who loved him might very well beat you senseless in a back alleyway if they hear you speaking poorly of him. There is no winning, not really.  
  
Illya knows that burden all too well.  
  
But Gaby is talking too swiftly, and he does not want to interrupt her. Perhaps he will tell her later.  
  
This is how Gaby copes with her weaknesses: Alcohol, and talking.  
  
She does not mind if Illya knows about these things that keep her awake at night. Maybe she truly, deeply trusts him; maybe her need to talk overrides any reservations she still has about confiding in him.  
  
Whatever the case, there is some comfort in the fact that she’s chosen to confide in him, makes him think that maybe, perhaps, he might be able to do the same some day.  
  
Maybe.  
  
[---]  
  
It gets better, perhaps, once they get… The word ‘friendly’ feels wrong, but it’s as accurate as he can be. Napoleon never makes a remark about Illya’s mother or father after that first meeting, and his other jibes become far less personal in nature. Gaby’s concerned looks soon become less frequent, and she soon becomes more visibly relaxed around him.  
  
And gradually, he begins to relax too.  
  
[---]  
  
“Welcome back, all, glad to see you in one piece- Solo, you and I are going to have a discussion later about the exploding lavatory. To think you once had the gall to chastise Kuryakin for his lack of subtlety.”  
  
A fox-like smirk unfolds over Napoleon’s face, and they all know any rebuke from Waverly will go in one ear and out the other. Illya doesn’t know why the man still bothers.  
  
“Well, it did provide us with a clean getaway,” Gaby murmurs into her glass of water.  
  
“‘Clean’ is not the word I would use.” Illya grunts.  
  
The smirk widens.  
  
They’re on an airplane heading out of Somalia, fresh off a bit of business involving some stolen uranium. The debriefing goes as they always do, with each of them trading off in telling parts of the mission (Illya with considerably less snark than Napoleon and Gaby) and Waverly adding the odd comment here and there, but mostly just listening. The mission is deemed a success, and Waverly only mutters a reminder to Napoleon that blowing up lavatories is not a terribly smart idea during a covert operation. Predictably, the American only snickers.  
  
“Well, alright then,” Waverly says, pulling out a new folder and opening it on the table in front of him. “We’re headed to Belgium next. Evidently there’s a young man with some information regarding a terrorist cell operating on the border with Germany.”  
  
“Let me guess,” Illya says, rubbing his eyes, “ties to Nazis?”  
  
“Possibly, though unconfirmed at current. We’re heading to St. Vith to make contact with the young-”  
  
“No.”  
  
They all turn to see Napoleon staring down Waverly. “Pardon, Solo?”  
  
“I said, _no_. I’m not going to St. Vith.”  
  
That arrogant, smooth smirk has melted away replaced by something cold and dark, and there is something funny about his tone; it’s unusually flat, but there’s something… _Hard_ about it. Illya can’t recall ever hearing Napoleon speak like this before. Or _look_ like this- he’s gone completely rigid, hands gripping the arms of his seat so tightly they’ve gone white.  
  
Waverly has a finely-tuned sense for when it’s a bad time to push, and so he describes the remainder of the mission and pulls Napoleon aside afterwards to speak.  
  
They do so in another section of the plane, door shut, and Illya only makes a few words out.  
  
From Napoleon: “Won’t go”, “Reasons”, and “Own business”.  
  
From Waverly: “War”, “Stress”, “Dossier”, “Mention”.  
  
Napoleon’s stance is fairly clear, but Illya can’t piece together a coherent argument from what he’s heard from Waverly.  
  
Whatever the case, he must have been successful, because Napoleon is going to St. Vith. Even if he doesn’t look happy about it.  
  
They land late Monday evening, and on Tuesday, they go to meet the asset.  
  
Napoleon claims illness, and has to stay at the hotel.  
  
At first, Illya is convinced that Napoleon is feigning it, that he was so hell-bent on not coming to St. Vith in the first place that he’s willing to fake an illness to leave faster. Illya fumes as he and Gaby go to meet their asset, starts to consider pulling Napoleon aside and knocking him on the head to set him straight once they get back.  
  
It’s only after knocking on Napoleon’s door and finding himself face-to-face with the palest, most hollow-looking version of Napoleon Solo that he’s ever seen that he stumbles and only says, “We meet the asset again tomorrow.”  
  
Napoleon only nods, and shuts the door.  
  
The behavior continues the next day: Napoleon walks down the street with an almost glazed expression, eyes straight ahead, hands jammed into his pockets. During the meeting with the asset, he only grunts or moves his head in response to questions.  
  
When they leave, Gaby pulls Illya aside and whispers, “Talk to him.”  
  
He double-takes. “What?”  
  
“Talk to him. I tried to talk to him, last night, but he just…” She makes a vague gesture with her hands, but her eyes clearly convey her concerns. “Talk to him. _Please._ ”  
Illya has a terrible problem with saying no to Gaby, and damn her, she knows it.  
  
And so he humors her, tells Napoleon she’s going to go look for some decent food to bring back to the hotel later on. He nods once, shoves his hands back into his pockets, and proceeds in the direction of the hotel.  
  
Illya keeps pace beside him, racks his brain for a way to broach the subject. Gaby, he thinks, must have been straight-forward, but gentle; her usual nature, mixed with concern for Napoleon’s odd behavior.  
  
But Illya is not Gaby, and cannot think of a way to make Napoleon open up without patronizing him, irritating him, or otherwise making it worse.  
  
They’re nearly back to the hotel and he’s coming painfully close to just falling to his knees and _begging_ for an explanation when, evidently, some force in the universe hears his prayers, and intervenes.  
  
“Napoleon?”  
  
Napoleon freezes.  
  
Illya turns.  
  
The speaker is a petite brunette woman, well-dressed, but nothing that indicates excessive wealth.  
  
“Hello! How are you?” She speaks with an accent, and with the hesitancy of someone speaking a language they know but aren’t terribly accustomed to using.  
  
Napoleon smiles, and it’s a surprisingly genuine one. “I’m well, Virginie. And you?”  
  
“I am good! Yes! It has been so long- you look much better!”  
  
Illya does not miss the way Napoleon’s head twitches in his direction. “I am much better, Virginie. How have you been?”  
  
Illya drifts off to the side a bit, giving them some measure of privacy. From what little he is able to clearly hear, Virginie and Napoleon have not seen each other for a very long time.  
Napoleon was in the war, that much he remembers. But he wasn’t there for long, only managing to join up in 1945- had he even seen any serious conflict, or had he been relegated to lesser tasks? He’d been in the occupying force in Germany following the war, but Illya is largely unaware of what he’d done during it.  
  
Eventually, Virginie bids him farewell with a kiss on the cheek, and trots off with the air of somebody whose day has just gotten considerably better.  
  
“An old friend?” Illya inquires, ambling cautiously back to Napoleon’s side.  
  
“She was a nurse.” The sentence ends there, but it's enough to confirm the primary suspicion.  
  
“During the war?” Illya asks, and Napoleon confirms it with a curt nod. “You were injured?”  
  
He doesn’t respond at all, staring at the ground ahead of them with an expression that would be blank, if not for the edge of… Anxiety, perhaps, creeping in.  
  
Illya wonders if he should press on or just leave it be. He takes for granted Napoleon’s easy nature, his ability to keep a cool head under fire. He can see that the man’s patience and nerves are fraying rapidly, and is not certain what will happen when one (or both) of them finally break.  
  
Abruptly, Napoleon’s breathing changes. Illya thinks little of it immediately, but the problem becomes something much more troubling when Napoleon wanders over to the grass at the side of the road and actually bends over a little, arms wrapped around his ribs. Illya is just trying to consider what he should do when Napoleon actually sinks down onto the grass, wrapping his arms around his knees.  
  
_Hell_.  
  
He struggles for a moment, but then decides there’s nothing else to do but sit down next to him.  
  
Napoleon sits like that for no less than seven minutes (Illya times it while smiling awkwardly at the odd-looks that passers-by give them, two men sitting on the grass on the side of the road), and Illya only knows that whatever’s happening is over when he hears Napoleon’s breathing return to normal, and he raises his head a fraction. His expression is mostly unreadable, but when he sees Illya next to him, Illya detects a flash of embarrassment in his eyes. Shame.  
  
Illya doesn’t know what to say, is still unfamiliar enough with Napoleon that he’s at a loss for how to appropriately comfort him, or even to ask how. What ends up coming out sounds much like something he thinks the man would say if their positions were reversed: “Must have been bad injury.”  
  
Napoleon lets out a strange, almost hysterical laugh, so unlike the smooth one Illya is accustomed to. It’s alarming. But then the American shakes his head and says, “In a manner of speaking.” He pauses. Then, “It wasn’t physical so much as it was… Mental.”  
  
He looks entirely uncomfortable in saying it, like it’s a confession he was hoping he wouldn’t have to make. But Illya understands all the same, because really, it isn’t as though his mental health is without blemish, is it?  
  
“I’ve seen it,” He says, trying not to stumble over the words. “The, uh… Problems. Many men in my country have it.” The ones that are left, he thinks, because too many aren’t, and that’s left the survivors with more than their fair share of pain. They drink; much like that man in Smolensk, they take their aggressions out on those who don’t deserve it, on foreigners and spouses and children. Many of them have lost their ability to pretend they’re alright.  
  
Napoleon, he realizes, is just managing to cling to it.  
  
“I’d rather not talk about it.” Napoleon says, still far too quiet to be normal, as he gets to his feet.  
  
“Fair enough.”  
  
Napoleon doesn’t prod at the things that pain Illya anymore; it’s not a problem to return the favor.  
  
[---]  
  
Knowing that people _know_ the things that can set him off, the soft-spots they can pick at and prod and press to their hearts’ content, to manipulate or aggravate him at their leisure, sets him on edge, makes him guard himself against those around him. Consciously or otherwise, he is in a constant state of conflict, wondering when the next assault will come.  
  
At first, when he finds himself relaxing around Napoleon and Gaby, he feels some guilt; he’s thinks maybe he’s only calm now because now he has ammo against them, something to use in the event that his tentative trust in them proves to be mistaken. This is the way he’s learned to survive, in the KGB: Nobody is trustworthy, everyone is looking to get ahead, and every bit of leverage you can gain is a mark in your favor.  
  
Around two people who have made an effort to show him kindness, it feels like it is _he_ who is proving to be untrustworthy, and Illya hates himself all the more for it.  
But Napoleon treats him like a friend, and Gaby plants light kisses on his cheek when he comes back from assignments, and there is none of the tension that once existed between the three of them.  
  
And he wonders if maybe, just maybe, that in allowing him to see what keeps them awake at night, what makes them pale with fear or dread, that they’ve relieved themselves in some way; that, in knowing what they know about him, and knowing that _he_ knows about them, they all exist on a level playing field, where no one has to play at being alright when they’re not, and where there are people to catch them when they can’t quite manage to stand on their own.  
  
This, Illya realizes, is probably what having friends feels like.  
  
And it feels very, very good.  
  
-End

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: “Gross stress reaction” (i.e. what Waverly alludes to in his argument with Napoleon) is more or less what PTSD was known as prior to 1968 (I say “more or less” because the symptoms differ between the two due to the fact that the understanding of PTSD advanced considerably between 1952 (when the DSM-I was published with GSR as a diagnostic category) and 1968. Hence why “gross stress reaction” was removed from the DSM-II when it was published in 1968 and PTSD became an official diagnostic category in 1980 when the DSM-III was published). 
> 
> History. I love it.
> 
> EDIT: Also, I neglected to note this, if anyone missed it: The Battle of St. Vith (which was part of the Battle of the Bulge) was a really deadly battle during World War II. The Battle of the Bulge, overall, was one of the bloodiest battles fought by American forces.


End file.
